Networks and Neighbours -- Networked Neighbourhoods: The Purview -- Connected Community -- Community Practice in the Network Society: Pathways Toward Civic Intelligence -- Social Networks and the Nature of Communities -- Community Informatics for Community Development: the “Hope or Hype” Issue Revisited -- Knowledge and the Local Community -- Connected Memories in the Networked Digital Era: A Moving Paradigm -- Community and Communication: A Rounded Perspective1 -- The Research Impetus -- Connected Lives: The Project1 -- The Impact of the Internet on Local and Distant Social Ties -- The Magic Lounge: Connecting Island Communities Through Varied Communication Services -- The Digital Hug: Enhancing Emotional Communication by Creative Scenarios -- Ambient Intelligence: Human–Agent Interactions in a Networked Community -- Mediated Human Communication -- Beyond Communication: Human Connectedness as a Research Agenda -- The Presence Project: Helping Older People Engage with Their Local Communities -- Informing the Community: The Roles of Interactive Public Displays in Comparable Settings -- Serving Visitor Communities: A Mediated Experience of the Arts.

The setting for this book is the networked community. The treatment of the subject matter is broad and interdisciplinary, with contributions from computer science, sociology, design, human factors and communication technology. The chapter contributors, drawn from across Europe and North America, offer a varied prospectus of commentary, critique, sociological enquiry, technological development and research findings, which provides a rounded account of the progressive intermingling of social and electronic networks. The contributors discuss the ways in which the Internet affects both familial and social relationships, communal and civic involvement, social capital and work patterns and lifestyle. Civic intelligence is presented as a nascent concept from which future social networks of increased public advocacy, scrutiny and action may be sourced. Other reported developments include agent-based community systems to model and support communal memory and social knowledge. The opening section provides a purview of the broad scene covered by the book, followed by discussions about the current state of connected communities. Following this there are case studies illustrating the different aspects of research, both sociological and technological, in this area. The final part reports the variety and the scope of technology-mediated human-to-human communication in a connected community setting today. Patrick Purcell is a Senior Research Fellow and Visiting Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, where he is a member of the Intelligent Systems and Networks Group.